Sand Shark AH-1F Cobra V2

One of the dead giveaways of a scale RC model is the rotor head, which is usually non-scale. Most of us who do not possess the CNC skills to construct a custom scale metal head have to live with commercial heads available in the RC marketplace. Or do we?

Here's my attempt to dress up a simple rotor head with cosmetic elements in an effort to bump up its scale fidelity. The Cobra has a very unique teetering head with 3 prominent features: lag braces, elastomeric bearings and a large mast nut at the top. While it's impossible to faithfully reproduce the entire scale head, adding just these 3 features should vastly improve the scale look.

The main challenge is to prevent the scale elements from impeding the lead/lag motion of the model's main blade. My solution is to create two main components: one is attached to the grip and the other to the blade. They are mated through the lag brace which behaves like a telescope, allowing for about 30 degrees of rotational movement.

This added visual complexity should greatly improve the scale factor, especially when seen from flying distances.